Communicating complex and controversial issues in exhibitions
In this session we want to find out more about the “do’s” and “don’ts” of communicating complex and controversial ideas in museum settings.
We believe that the most effective way of facilitating engagement is to invite visitors to take part in critical-issue-based exhibitions and to discuss and debate topical issues that bridge science and our everyday lives. But how do we find a common language to begin with and what forms of participation can we establish in museum settings?
The session will be chaired by Heather King from King’s College London, whose research addresses the nature of science engagement and the communication practices of museums.
Facilitator
Reader in Science Education
Session speakers
Research Associate (PhD candidate)
KiSOC - Kiel Science Outreach Campus / University of Kiel
Przemek Michalik-Sobolewski is a PhD Candidate at the University Kiel and preoccupies himself with a challenge every curator of any scientific exhibition has to face one day: how to communicate dense numerical information to a lay audience? His research project analyzed the content of two critical-issues-based special exhibitions with regards to numerical information and mathematical representations. His goal was to identify possible challenges that the content might pose on visitors. In sharing his findings, Przemek will discuss if and how information design should be adjusted to meets the requirements of visitors.
Engagement is a key issue for museums today. There are numerous ways of engaging visitors, from personal facilitation to media installations to interactive exhibits. A personal communication approach usually works very well, but it can get difficult to handle as organizational dimensions increase. The Deutsche Museum is currently undergoing major renovations, renewing most of its exhibitions. The Museum is using this momentum to take visitor engagement - especially with today’s pressing socio-scientific issues (SSIs) - onto a new level. Since the 2000s, SSI-topics have been increasingly integrated into the Museum's exhibitions. The latest special exhibition 'energy.transition' made the engagement with the socio-scientific dimension of energy transition its core: An interactive game, where visitors slip into the role of a politician and decide on how to design their country’s sustainable energy future. The exhibition itself is '2nd row' and works as knowledge repository for the game. This new exhibition setup was intensely evaluated and researched in cooperation with the Kiel Science Outreach Campus KiSOC. In this presentation, we will shed some light on the practicability, the success and challenges (or Do’s and Don’ts) of this setup, as well as report some findings from the evaluation.
Morten A. Skydsgaard, PhD is senior curator at the Science Museums, University of Aarhus. He has curated several exhibitions aimed at young people about the dilemmas of technology, body culture and medicine. In this talk he will share how he has investigated four design principles - curiosity, challenge, narratives and participation – to prompt and facilitate reflection and discussion among young visitors in the issues-based exhibition Dear, Difficult Body.
Here is the article "Designing museum exhibits that facilitate visitor reflection and discussion" from Journal of Museum Management and Curatorship
